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BitTorrent v2

blog.libtorrent.org

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Re: BitTorrent v2

#101

Post by armitron »

flatline wrote: post #85
armitron wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Collisions in the context of bittorrent are not a big deal. We could (and will, there are millions of torrents around that will never be updated) keep using SHA1 and the world is not going to end.

They aren’t? So someone can craft a payload that contains a rootkit or similar and has the same name and hash as the thing you wanted, and this is okay? (Disclaimer: I don’t know all that much about how hashes are used internal to the protocol)

The vast majority of data shared over bittorrent is not executable.

So your scenario becomes an issue if you're downloading executable data that you deem :trusted: without any additional verification besides the hash itself. If that's the case, you have bigger worries than the hash.

Re: BitTorrent v2

#102

Post by sleavey »

heartbeats wrote: post #78
sleavey wrote: post #71

SHA1 has a collision, so now it uses SHA256. How long until a SHA256 collision? Shouldn't the new protocol just add support for many modern hash functions, and client updates can disable support for hashes that become insecure later? Or does this introduce its own headaches? That's what SSH does, right?

What if the hashes differ?

I expect there would have to be other changes to allow this feature, such as the server advertising all the available/supported hashes for each chunk.

Re: BitTorrent v2

#104

Post by oblio »

ajtulloch wrote: post #53
oblio wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, but it's not used anymore, from what I know. Few places use it for distribution, I guess they don't consider it worth the hassle. Blizzard was using it to distribute binaries. I guess mobile internet was its downfall as few people want to seed from a mobile connection.

Lots of companies use BT in a datacenter environment to efficiently distribute binaries to a large number of hosts.

Again, this is in the context of the original BitTorrent hype. Which was huge. What you're mentioning is small potatoes.

Re: BitTorrent v2

#105

Post by bamboozled »

noja wrote: post #82
Taek wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think anyone is expecting a sha256 collision in the next 20 years. The crypto doesn't seem to leave much wiggle room for exploitation.

Don't people always say exactly that? What are the chances of a collision if we simultaneously use multiple hashes, does it become significantly less likely?

In twenty years, So they have 10-15 years to safely do other things.

Re: BitTorrent v2

#106

Post by huhtenberg »

proverbialbunny wrote: post #25

It feels like this isn't a large enough leap forward. It would be nice if BitTorrent v2 made it harder for ISPs to identify what is bit torrent traffic. AT&T artificially slows down upload speeds.

It's nearly impossible to obfuscate a protocol to work around filtering.

You'd want to look like some other protocol and you want that protocol be encrypted by default. Otherwise yours will get fingerprinted via the deep packet inspection.

The most obvious choice is to run your protocol over TLS. But then they can just throttle long-lived bulky TLS connections where neither side is on 443.

You can then require the responding side be on 443 (which is already a big hassle), but they will then throttle down TLS connections towards residential IPs or throttle them down cumulatively, as a group.

Other choices here are OpenVPN, WireGuard and, possibly, IPsec. But, again, it will come down to defeating the throttling of multiple inbound bulky connections of the same type, which is doubly hard to bypass if you are on a residential IP and your ISP is really bent on throttling.

Any successful obfuscation technique is short-lived, so it has no place in the protocol itself. Instead it should be delegated to a transport layer and the clients should be coded to support BT tunneling over X or over Y.

Re: BitTorrent v2

#107

Post by thawaway1837 »

luizfelberti wrote: post #66
xibalba wrote: post #11

To me, BitTorrent feels a lot like Blockchain: interesting tech that doesn't seem to be able to find a practical and useful application (proportionate to the attendant hype). Which is not to say that either can't, they just haven't yet. Why? EDIT: while I don't (yet) consider myself delirious, responses to this comment have illuminated how little I know about the influence and application of BitTorrent. In other word…

You're delirious. Setting aside the fact that BitTorrent came about long before BitCoin was a glint in Satoshi's eye, it's still massively used for content distribution, on top of being a foundational technology to several industrial applications: Apache Spark, for example, uses BitTorrent to shuffle/broadcast data around cluster nodes. Even when BitTorrent alternatives are used in its place (such as IPFS, Dat, or Ka…

Wasn’t the original Skype that Microsoft paid billions for also based on BitTorrent technology?

Not BitTorrent exactly, but close enough that if the blockchain spinoff was bought for that much the blockchain folks would certainly consider (rightfully IMO) a victory in the blockchain column.

Re: BitTorrent v2

#108

Post by oblio »

luizfelberti wrote: post #66
xibalba wrote: post #11

To me, BitTorrent feels a lot like Blockchain: interesting tech that doesn't seem to be able to find a practical and useful application (proportionate to the attendant hype). Which is not to say that either can't, they just haven't yet. Why? EDIT: while I don't (yet) consider myself delirious, responses to this comment have illuminated how little I know about the influence and application of BitTorrent. In other word…

You're delirious. Setting aside the fact that BitTorrent came about long before BitCoin was a glint in Satoshi's eye, it's still massively used for content distribution, on top of being a foundational technology to several industrial applications: Apache Spark, for example, uses BitTorrent to shuffle/broadcast data around cluster nodes. Even when BitTorrent alternatives are used in its place (such as IPFS, Dat, or Ka…

> it's still massively used for content distribution

Is it, though? Youtube doesn't use it, neither do Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime Video, Disney+, Spotify, etc. Does anybody (except for Blizzard) use it? I don't think Steam or the Epic store or the App Store or the Play Store use it, either.

I'd be extremely glad to be proven wrong.

Re: BitTorrent v2

#110

Post by oblio »

CyberDildonics wrote: post #92
oblio wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, but what's the current number? I'd be surprised if it were more than 5-10% these days. 2009 was 11 years ago, the internet was a much smaller and less regulated place.

You think that if something once took up 50% of all traffic on the internet it never found a practical application?

> proportionate to the attendant hype

From the original comment.

Also, just because it was 50% at some point, it doesn't really matter today. Paraphrasing, a technology is only as good as it's latest match result.

Perl was once powering the web, nowadays you have to look at the web with an electronic microscope to find it...

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